After a complex heart valve surgery at Providence Heart Institute in Missoula, Robin Schmitt is back to pickleball, cardiac rehab and keeping up with her grandkids.
After a summer of playing pickleball, Robin Schmitt began to feel tired and dizzy. She went from being active in August to lethargic in October. At the age of 62, she thought these were just signs she was getting old.
And then at the University of Montana Grizzly home football game in October 2025, Robin felt so tired and light-headed she almost fainted. She thought she was just overheated. But at her routine echocardiogram a month later, Dr. Brad Berry, a cardiologist with Providence Heart Institute in Missoula, gave her some jarring news: he suspected the aortic heart valve she received in 2012 was deteriorating. Dr. Berry referred Robin Providence St. Patrick Hospital’s cardiac surgery team at PHI, who evaluated Robin and confirmed that Robin needed open heart surgery to replace the valve.
Robin wanted to hold off the surgery until after Christmas, but her care team felt it was important to move forward quickly because the heart muscle could be irreparably damaged if she waited too long. The PHI clinical care team set up her surgery immediately.
The surgery involved removing her aging mechanical heart valve and replacing it with a new larger kind of valve. But because Robin had scar tissue from her previous surgery, the surgeons told her they had to “rebuild” her.
The surgery wasn’t just a process of placing a new valve, but also taking out the older one, cleaning out the scar tissue, and then replacing it. The surgery was delicate and complicated, with re-entering the chest, replacing the heart valve, and rebuilding the root.
The PHI cardiac team is devoted to our patients and their healing. Each patient and each surgery is unique. Robin’s surgery required a team like ours who has many years of experience and skill. It’s incredibly rewarding to bring a patient like Robin back to doing the activities she loves to do.
Robin can’t say enought good things about Providence Heart Institute’s cardiac team and all the care she received right here in Missoula. She works at Providence St. Patrick Hospital as an executive assistant, so she was able to see the care from the position of the patient.
“Everyone was so caring,” she says. “We have such amazing people working here. Everyone was supportive and attentive to all my needs. Even though it was scary, it was a positive experience."
Now, she’s going to her cardiac rehab sessions three times a week and is even back to playing pickleball. Best of all, she is enjoying and romping with her grandchildren. Her 7-year-old granddaughter is again enjoying her sleepovers at “Gaga’s” house, and Robin has returned to watching her 3-year-old grandson on Fridays.
“Harry’s a handful,” she says. “But I’m so glad that I’m getting stronger every day and can keep up with him.”
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